


Blue Algae

by somekindofseizure



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Babylon, MSR, Season/Series 10, prompt, revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 08:51:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6045472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somekindofseizure/pseuds/somekindofseizure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt following "Babylon" for a story where Scully gives Mulder a placebo pill of Viagra.<br/>Timeline:  Pre-Season 10/Revival</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Algae

**Blue Algae**

 

It had been weeks since they had last tried.  She told him it was his depression.  He told her it wasn’t just all in his head.  She told him he could get help.  He told her antidepressants would make it worse.  She told him it was okay.  He knew she was lying.

At first he would gloss over it by concentrating on her.  Touch her with his hands, his mouth, give her nights and days worth of orgasms.  As if he could distract her from the fact that they were falling apart if he only made her come hard enough.  

She was tired of his hands and his mouth – well, no, she wasn’t.  But she was tired of having only them.  He was not in them.  He was not ravishing her for his own purposes as he used to, his desire pent like a bull in its cage.  He was simply placating her, begging her not to leave or to be angry with him.  She missed the evidence of his want, the force of it, the size of it filling her up.

So she had stopped calling him to bed.  Started leaving him at his computer, letting him sleep when she rose for work.  She tried not to think of the way he used get up to take her clothes off right after she got them on, the way he would corner her before she made it out of the closet.  She tried not to see the sexy underwear pushed to the back of her drawer.  She tried not to see it all as the beginning of the end.

One day, when she came home from work, he seemed a bit brighter, met her in the kitchen.  She was used to this – the fruits of his digging online, brought to her like a cat leaving dead mice on a pillow.  Completely unaware such gifts only reminded her how different their lives were.  One party dotingly caring for the other, while the other hunts for sport.

“I think I know what it is, Scully.”

 “Hm?”

 He put his arms around her waist and hugged her.  She waited, startled at his contact.

 “I’m old.”

 “You just noticed this?”

 “No, I mean, the… sex thing.”

She sighed long and heavy. It was a version of the conversation they’d had hundreds of times, it seemed.  Always some loophole, some escape, anything but acceptance that he was in fact depressed.  She could not understand why any other weakness seemed preferable to him.  Now she was supposed to reassure him by giving him a medical opinion that he was too old to fuck her?  What kind of logic was that?  Mulder logic, that’s what.

 She turned, bracing herself against the sink.

“Well, what else can it be? It’s certainly not you.”  He touched her cheek tenderly.  He was flirting with her.  It had been so long, she nearly blushed – if not for her annoyance.

“You know what I think it is.”  

He went to the fridge, angrily clomping a bottle of kombucha around – the drink he claimed would make him happy, healthy, virile.  All it seemed to make him was awake.

“Well, it’s not that, Scully. I’m not crazy.”  

“It’s not crazy, Mulder,” she said exasperated, exhausted.  “It’s a chemi –“ she said, no energy left to finish the word even one more time.

She was sad to have already lost the way he had looked at her in his old, familiar way for that split second.  She remembered the day she realized he had been looking at her that way for seven years straight.

“Why don’t I get to have a say in this?  You think I want to make excuses?  You think I don’t care if my dick never works again?”

“I think you just don’t want to have to accept help.”

“I do want help.  I want a prescription.  But not of Zoloft.”

“What do you want?” She was hopeful.  Perhaps he had read about one of the new Tricyclics or something.

“Viagra.”

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, sure he was messing with her.  He appeared quite serious, and proud of himself at that - standing tall, looking her in the eye through his mess of horrible, sexy scruff. She could not believe he was actually taking it this far.

“Mulder, get off WebMD. You live with a fucking doctor.” 

“Get it for me.”  He licked his lips as he waited for her answer.  In the timbre of his voice she heard a past-life Mulder.  The one who instead said, “Give it to me.” It echoed in her mind.   _Give it to me.  Give it to me._  And she gave up.

“Okay, I’ll get it,” she said softly.

*

Scully thought about it all day.  She had considered actually getting it for him.  It meant she would definitely get laid.  But then what?  He would insist on it every time.  Then, when he became too depressed to bother to take it, she would have to weave through his next blanket of explanations and excuses.  She needed him to fuck her.  But she also wanted to prove she was right.

She was willing to bet on both.  

She picked up some blue algae pills at the health store.  They had the letter V on them (for the brand name, which was some play on the word vitamin).  She felt a deceitful thrill run through her veins at the risk.  If it didn’t work, it would be another miserable reminder of the turn their relationship had taken, that Mulder had taken.  But it would also mean having to admit she was wrong.  He would probably be so angry with her, it would take months to convince him to try to the real thing again.

Thing was, she was pretty sure she wasn’t wrong.

She showered when she got home, fished that neglected black underwear from the back of the drawer and put it under her soft, beige house clothes.  She placed the pill on his dish when they sat down to dinner.  He grinned at her.  At one time, that would have meant he was thinking about sex.  But now it could just mean he thought he had won.  She sucked a tiny pang of guilt off her fork and watched him swallow it.  She wondered how long she would have to wait for it to “take effect.”  

She picked up her phone, muttering about work emails and did a quick search on Viagra to see what Mulder would have found.  Thirty minutes.  She tried not to look too sneaky as she finished her dinner quickly, tried to seem innocent as she checked in with him.  “Anything?”

“Not yet,” he said.

When the half hour was up and he began to wander aimlessly around the house like he was waiting for a guest who hadn’t shown up, she knew it was showtime.  Mulder was waiting for his magic cock to spring to life, and she knew she was the only magician in the house.  She found him in the den.  “Still nothing?”

“It can take longer on men with low blood sugar.”  

It took a dedicated legion of her muscles, heart, and mind not to roll her eyes at him.

“Well, maybe I should try to help it along.”  

She used to do this kind of thing for him all the time, thinking nothing of it.  But that was when she knew it would turn him on.  When she didn’t have to wonder if he would have to pretend, or if he’d give up in self-loathing.  She reminded herself she was not a sorority girl, but a scientist testing a hypothesis here.  

She peeled off her pants slowly as she moved towards him.  He watched her intently, standing like a statue next to the arm of the couch, and for a split second, she thought he was looking just to be polite.  Then she pulled her shirt off.

When she reached him, she was all skin and satin.  A simple, short black spaghetti strap slip he’d given her the day he admitted he hated all her pajamas.  A matching demi-cup bra that she fell out of every time she so much as leaned to wash her hands.  And her pride.  When she conducted experiments, she made sure the control was solid.

He sat in front of her on the arm of the couch.  She wanted to touch him or kiss him, but she knew she had done enough.  He needed to believe the pill was taking over.

“Anything?” she asked.

He put his hand on her hip and pulled her toward him, spreading his long preying mantis legs to the sides of her.  She was close, but the edge of the couch put an inch of space between their bodies.  He brushed his fingers against the sides of her knees and dragged them up the sides of her thighs, his eyes following along.  When he reached the top of her legs, he wrapped his hands around her ass, bunching the satin and skin in his palms.  He slid forward on the furniture, pressed her up against him and… _yes… God… there…_

“I think it’s working,” he said understatedly.  He grabbed her neck as he kissed her open-mouthed and straddled her in his lap, so her feet were on the couch cushions behind him.

“I don’t know if you remember,” she said, “But you do have to take your pants off for this.”

“It’s not going anywhere,” he said confidently and squeezed her against him.  He buzzed with delight as he realized she wasn’t wearing underwear, reaching around her thigh to put a finger inside her.  She grabbed his arm.

“No,” she said.  “None of that tonight.”  She pressed herself into what she did want and sighed a month or two worth of relief.  “Give it to me,” she said.

At the end of the five hours, Dr. Scully was able to conclude her experiment.  Hypothesis correct.

*

They were lying on the floor, too tired to move.  He had dragged pillows off the couch.

“See, Scully?” he said, his eyes bright with life again, a satisfied case-closed look on his face. “It’s not in my head.  My penis is just too old to do it without help.”

“Mulder, the only help you had tonight was from La Perla.”

“What are you talking about?”

She sat up and reached for the slip, pulling it back over her head as she got up, letting it linger over her waist before it fell over her ass.

“You just fucked me for five hours straight on a seaweed supplement.” 

She could have glanced over her shoulder on her way out, just to make sure he wasn’t angry, but she didn’t.   She was pretty sure he’d meet her naked in the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, feel free to make my day and tell me about it. Here, or on tumblr as @somekindofseizure, or at somekindofseizure@gmail.com.


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